Contents

Introduction

This chapter discusses
spiritual practice and why it is good. By “spiritual practice”
I mean activities such as meditation, chanting, special breathing,
etc., the purpose of which is to put one in touch with one’s
true nature, which is divine. It is good to do such practices because
they put one in touch with reality, and being in touch with reality
helps one to survive and thrive. It promotes well-being, both of
oneself and one’s environment.

The Purpose of Spiritual Practice

A few people “get”
the fundamental insight with such intensity that it radically
transforms and informs their whole life. Most of us need reminders.
Having had an insight into our true nature, having cognized it, we
fall back into ordinary experience and fail to recognize and act on
it. We don’t remember who we are. The purpose of doing
spiritual practice is to put oneself in a state in which the
recognition can happen more easily, a state in which one opens
oneself to the Divine, pays attention to its influence on one’s
life, and gradually becomes transformed such that one is a clear
channel for divine benevolence.

Meditation and
spiritual practices such as chanting, zikr, Sufi Dancing, etc., take
one’s attention away from the distractions of daily life and
turn it inward. The chattering mind is quieted. The more one drops
the chattering and the focus on the outer world, the more one feels
the presence of al-Lah.

This opening to the
Divine has two aspects, experience and action. One has mystical
experiences of grandeur, awe, peace, harmony, beauty and love. And
one’s actions benefit the whole, not just the small part of the
whole that we often misunderstand ourselves to be.

Neem Karoli Baba, a
guru who lived in India and had a great influence on westerners,
advised his followers to “Love, Serve, Remember”. This
phrase is a motto of the Lama Foundation in northern New Mexico, and
it is a beautiful phrase, but I am uncomfortable with it, because the
point is not just to remember an ecstatic experience, and certainly
not to remember a set of beliefs. The point of life is to actually
live and act on the surety that one is an expression of the Divine.

The degree of effect an
experience or series of similar experiences has on one is a function
of three things: duration, intensity and frequency. The goal of
spiritual practice (or at least one of the goals) is to increase the
duration, intensity and frequency of mystical experience, thus
increasing the effects of mystical experience.

The effects of mystical
experience are the following:

A pleasurable
feeling of peace, happiness and well-being.

An increase in
benevolence toward others, both feelings of benevolence and
benevolent actions. Acting benevolently toward others is actually
both an effect and a cause of mystical experience. The more one acts
benevolently toward others (and toward oneself), the more open one
is to mystical experience and the more likely one is to have
mystical experiences.

An increase in
guidance from al-Lah. One becomes more intuitive, more open to the
voice of Spirit.

All this is an upward
spiral. An increase in one generally promotes an increase in the
others.

Another stated purpose
of spiritual practice in many traditions is to achieve liberation
from suffering. In traditions that believe in reincarnation, this
means liberation from the wheel of birth and death such that one no
longer returns to the mundane world in which we find ourselves, which
is full of suffering. Belief in reincarnation is not necessary to
obtain benefits from spiritual practice. The sense of connection to
the divine, the All, the unity from which all diversity emanates, is
itself a relief of suffering. In addition to this liberation from
suffering, one achieves liberation from mistaken ideas, attitudes and
behaviors that cause suffering.

Meditation and Mystical Experience

By "mystical
experience" or "spiritual experience" I mean a feeling
of being connected to all that is, and to the source of all that is.
This has a cognitive element of recognizing the connection and a
feeling or affective element of pleasure, even extreme pleasure, or
bliss. It also includes feelings of awe and gratitude.

I have been practicing
meditation of various forms for many years, over thirty at this
writing. Early on I got to correlate my internal experience with an
externally-observable reading on an electro-encephalogram, so I know
that when I am in a meditative state my brain waves drop from the
rapid oscillations called beta to the smoother and longer waves
called alpha. But I rarely think about my state in those terms.

Looking back on my
meditative experience, remembering it, I see that a number of things
happen during the experience. One is the doing of the practice
itself, in my case repeating a phrase while breathing in a certain
rhythm and sometimes visualizing something or doing certain bodily
motions or both. (There are lots of different practices, and in this
chapter I do not give specific instructions. If you want instruction,
find a teacher who can work with you.) Another is the random thoughts
that go on, remembrances of things past, anticipations of things to
come, mental rehearsals of what I should have done or would like to
do, etc. Another is emotions, sometimes painful, sometimes not.
Another is physical sensations such as little pains or itches. After
a time I enter into a sense of deep peace and calmness, which, I have
learned, corresponds to a brain state of alpha waves.

So far this is much
like ordinary experience, except that I am sitting quietly
concentrating on the practice and am experiencing the stillness and
calmness of the alpha state. Often, however, at some point I
experience a letting go of the distracting thoughts and a
concentration on the practice, such that the practice becomes more
intense and compelling. At that point a sense of well-being arises.
Yogic and tantric traditions call this “ananda”,
bliss. Occasionally this sense of bliss becomes very intense,
overshadowing or drowning out the everyday thoughts, concerns and
worries. At other times it is fairly mild, but in any case is it is
often accompanied by a sense of relief at being released from the
grip of the everyday world. Not that I think about the everyday world
and notice that I am released, but the sense of relief is there.

Spiritual teachers warn
against becoming attached to blissful states, and certainly people
can misuse spiritual practice to try to escape from problems without
actually dealing with them. Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche, calls the
attachment to blissful states “spiritual materialism”,
meaning that such states are objects of consciousness like any other,
and the point of the practice is not to reinforce desire for any
specific object of consciousness but to disengage from the objects
and experience one’s unity with the ground of being, the source
of all objects.

And yet, if there were
not cheese at the end of the maze, one would not go to the effort to
traverse it. It is undeniable that the sense of bliss, the ecstasy,
is highly pleasurable.

Paying attention to how
I feel and the state of the world as it appears to me shortly after
meditation, I see that when I am under the influence of meditation I
feel calmer, my mind is quieter, the world appears more vivid, and
subtle small influences are more clearly discerned than when I am in
an ordinary everyday state of mind. It’s a bit like being under
the influence of marijuana, but without the instability and labile
nature of that experience. I seem to be more intuitive. When one is
quiet one can more clearly hear the still, small voice of God.

Sometimes I just feel
waves of gratitude. Sometimes such a wave comes on me, unbidden.
Sometimes I remind myself to be grateful and then feel gratitude.
This, too, is a practice.

Transitory and Permanent States

Sufi teachings distinguish between two kinds of experience:

Hal,
translated as “state”; a temporary state of intense
feeling.

Maqam,
translated as “station”; a relatively permanent
orientation to life and the world.

In the actual practice
session and its aftermath, one sometimes experiences states of
ecstasy. These then pass away; and one practices again, seeking to
experience them again.

As a long-term effect
of doing the practices, one becomes oriented to the world in
different ways. Sufis distinguish between various stations of the
soul (nafs)1:
the soul that is tormented and does self-destructive things (nafs
al-ammara); the soul that recognizes its unhelpful behavior and
regrets it (nafs al-lawwama); and the soul that is at rest in
the peace of Allah, no longer harming others or itself (nafs
al-mutma'inna). (By “soul” here I mean coherence of
interiority. See the chapter on Self.)

One reason people do
spiritual practices is to experience the states of ecstasy. Another
reason is to transform one’s soul to become less tormented and
more benevolent and at peace. For most people the transformation is
not strictly linear; one moves among the stations, sometimes being in
one and sometimes in another. But the long-term trend is upward,
toward peace, love, harmony and beauty.

Three Pillars of Practice

In order fully to achieve the benefits of spiritual practice, three
things are necessary. In Sanskrit they are called Sadhana,
Satsang and Seva.

“Sadhana”
literally means “effort”. The word refers to the
spiritual practice itself, the meditation, the special breathing
(called pranayama in Sanskrit and qasab in Arabic), the
chanting or visualization, etc. Regular practice is essential to
long-term benefit. One influential guru, Shrii Shrii Anandamurti, has
said “One who performs sadhana twice a day regularly, that
person’s liberation is a sure guarantee.”

“Satsang”
means community or company of people seeking truth. Associating with
others of like mind, with “holy company” as the Quakers
say, gives one encouragement and helps reinforce one’s
determination to do one’s practices. Doing practices with
others is a particularly powerful way of strengthening and deepening
one’s own practice.

“Seva”
means service, helping others. Being of service to others –
humans and other beings – promotes and reinforces the
realization that one is not separate from the All. Failing to help
others – being selfish in the usual sense of that term –
promotes feelings, attitudes and behaviors that are fearful and
confining, the exact opposite of the truth.

In addition, good
conduct toward others is a helpful, if not necessary, pre-requisite
for practice. The classical text Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
advises one to follow ethical guidelines – yama,
observances, and niyama, restraints – as the first two
steps toward yogic realization. The reason for this advice is to help
one have a calm mind, which is conducive to meditation, rather than
an agitated mind, which is not. Yama and niyama are not rules to be
followed because of divine command but recommendations for what works
to advance one’s spiritual progress.

Prayer

There are many types of prayer, if by
“prayer” we mean an attempt by a created being to
communicate with the Creator2.
Three are fundamental:

Help me, help me, help me.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

What can I do for You?

Characterized by bodily posture, in
“Help me, help me, help me” one is bent over as if
depleted, with hands outstretched forward, palms up to receive,
begging. In “Thank you, thank you, thank you” one stands
upright, with face turned up, hands outstretched upward and palms
facing each other. The posture is like that of a flower facing the
sun, and one feels the divine grace as if it were sunlight,
nourishing and enlivening one. When one is full, even to overflowing,
one turns the palms outward and directs the gaze outward to express
“What can I do for You?” One feels so full of grace that
one wants to give it away to others. The “you” here may
refer to the Creator or to other created beings. Ultimately these are
not two.

Another helpful posture is prostration.
One kneels with one’s forehead on the ground, hands
outstretched forward. The head is lower than the heart. A more
intense form is full prostration, the entire body flat on the ground,
forehead on the ground, hands outstretched. If not lower, the head is
at least not higher than the heart. This position seems to be
particularly conducive to “Help me, help me, help me” and
“Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Another type of prayer is a plea to
help someone else. It is closely related to “Help me, help me,
help me” in that one feels a lack that one wants the Creator to
fill, and to “What can I do for You” in that the focus is
on someone else, not oneself. I do not yet have a bodily posture for
this type of prayer.

Another type of prayer is contemplative
prayer, also called centering prayer, in which one sits quietly in
the presence of the Creator. It is similar to meditation, in that
one sits quietly with eyes closed and does a practice, one effect of
which is to still the mind. It is similar to more expressive forms
of prayer in that one thinks of oneself as being in relationship with
the Creator. A friend of mine who practices contemplative prayer in a
Christian tradition tells me that the only thing necessary is to
intend to consent to the will of God. I find interesting the
minimalist nature of what is asked. You don't have to obey the will
of God. You don't even have to consent to it. All you are asked to do
is to intend to consent to it.

There is another state which might be
called prayer or might be called simply a state of being. One of my
teachers told me that the natural response of the created being to
the experienced presence of the Creator is an overwhelming feeling of
awe. The word in Arabic is hamd, which is sometimes translated
as “praise,” but praise is a derivative state, akin to
“Thank you, thank you, thank you.” The primary state is
speechless adoration. If there were words, they would be simply “Oh
my God!” This is a state (hal) that may pass, but its
effects are lasting.

The Spiritual Teacher

For most people it is
necessary to have a spiritual teacher, called guru in
Sanskrit, murshid in Arabic. At a minimum, the teacher is
someone who knows more than the student does about spiritual practice
and how to perform it. Sadhana is just like any skill; it helps to
learn how to do it from someone who knows and can coach you. Because
of the promise of liberation from suffering, and because the practice
can be overwhelmingly beautiful and awesome at times, people often
feel great devotion for their guru. This devotional love, called
bhakti in Sanskrit, can be in fact a practice in itself,
leading one to forget the sense of a separate self and merge oneself
in love for the guru or for God.

Some traditions revere
the guru as an embodiment of God. There is both promise and danger in
doing so. The promise is that considering the teacher an embodiment
of God holds out the possibility of realizing oneself as an
embodiment of God. The danger comes when one holds the guru to be God
to the exclusion of oneself, considering oneself as in some way less
than God. Doing so can lead one to abandon one’s own
discrimination and decision-making power. Particularly in communities
organized around devotion to a guru, it is possible to devolve to a
child’s point of view, consciously or unconsciously viewing the
guru as a parent. There is certainly a sense of freedom from worry
and a sense of belonging in such a situation, as one feels that the
guru and the community will fill all one’s needs. In fact,
however, this can lead to psychological stultification of the
personality.

In any case, it is
normal and appropriate to feel great affection and gratitude for
one’s teacher. At best, the teacher can see the student’s
condition at a particular point in time and prescribe practices
designed to meet the student’s precise needs at that time.
Typically, the teacher is intuitive and can address questions the
student may not even express outwardly. The teacher can guide the
student to high meditative states and can impart such states by, as
it were, sympathetic vibration. By sitting in the presence of a
teacher who has realized their true nature to a greater degree than
the student has, and who can get into deep states of meditation, the
student is led into such states and such realization him or herself.
These are states, transitory, but having been there one can more
easily attain such states in ones own personal practice. And the more
one experiences the states, the more one progresses toward a station
of being at rest in the knowledge and experience of being one with
al-Lah, an expression of the living divinity which is the All.

Revision History

[Nafs] has two meanings. First,
it means the powers of anger and sexual appetite in a human being...
and this is the usage mostly found among the people of tasawwuf
[sufis], who take "nafs" as the comprehensive word for all
the evil attributes of a person. That is why they say: one must
certainly do battle with the ego and break it (la budda min
mujahadat al-nafs wa kasriha), as is referred to in the hadith:
A`da `aduwwuka nafsuka al-lati bayna janibayk [Your worst
enemy is your nafs which lies between your flanks].

The second meaning of nafs is the
soul, the human being in reality, his self and his person. However,
it is described differently according to its different states. If it
assumes calmness under command and has removed from itself the
disturbance caused by the onslaught of passion, it is called "the
satisfied soul" (al-nafs al-mutma'inna)... In its first
meaning the nafs does not envisage its return to God because it has
kept itself far from Him: such a nafs is from the party of shaytan.
However, when it does not achieve calmness, yet sets itself against
the love of passions and objects to it, it is called "the
self-accusing soul" (al-nafs al-lawwama), because it
rebukes its owner for his neglect in the worship of his master... If
it gives up all protest and surrenders itself in total obedience to
the call of passions and shaytan, it is named "the soul that
enjoins evil" (al-nafs al-ammara bi al-su')... which
could be taken to refer to the ego in its first meaning.

2
I speak as if the Creator is separate from its creation. That is
certainly one way to experience one’s relationship with the
Divine. See the chapter on Metaphysics.